South Carolina 'sick of this feeling' after second straight loss on Saturday
There wasn’t much reason to believe they could do it. After last week’s performance, it was easy to see why South Carolina was being counted out by almost everyone.
But where no one saw the Gamecocks putting up much of a fight against the mighty Crimson Tide, the people inside the building did. And when they started to play well, it was the least bit of a surprise to them. It’s the standard.
“We expected to win this game,” head coach Shane Beamer said. “Nobody was coming in here at halftime doing cartwheels because we were in a tight game with Alabama. We expected that because we have a good football team.”
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To the surprise of many, South Carolina didn’t just make a few nice plays here and there — it was right in the thick of it. The Gamecocks were even leading at one point in the fourth quarter, but they couldn’t finish off Alabama as they suffered a 27-25 loss on Saturday in Tuscaloosa.
There are no moral victories in the SEC, especially not after losing two weeks in a row. Without question, South Carolina looked like a much more competent team on the road this weekend. But the outcome remains the same. A loss is still a loss and the feeling doesn’t change.
“I’ve hurt for (the players). We’re sick of this feeling,” Beamer said. “They work too hard during the week to come in here on Saturdays and feel like that in that locker room.”
There’s a real argument that the Gamecocks could very well be 5-1 right now instead of 3-3 with a 1-3 record in conference play. But 13 penalties in a 36-33 loss to LSU and four turnovers against Alabama will do just that in close games.
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South Carolina lost three fumbles on Saturday, one of which resulted in an ensuing Alabama touchdown in the fourth quarter. But besides those miscues, it was a pretty strong effort for the Gamecocks with a great chance to win. The mistakes just happened to have a big impact as the game wore on.
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“Life in this conference is really, really hard,” Beamer said. “And there’s really good teams you play week in, week out. So it says we have a good team that competes their asses off and that’s what we did today.”
A pretty strong effort isn’t good enough, though — not after the way this season has gone. The players know they’re a better team than what the record indicates. They’ve been right there and have had chances to win. They just haven’t been able to finish consistently yet.
“It hurt. Don’t nobody wanna hurt again, that’s the message,” Mazeo Bennett said. “We gotta stop coming to the locker room feeling like this.”
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And maybe that game where it all comes together isn’t far off from happening. The Gamecocks will head to Norman to take on an Oklahoma team enduring with a lot of problems at the moment. The Sooners have lost two of their last three, including a blowout 34-3 loss to rival Texas in Dallas this weekend.
With South Carolina’s defense playing well as it has been, combined with the offense showing signs of life against Alabama, there is a great deal of belief from the team that they can go out and beat any team any given weekend. It just comes down to doing it. But the confidence is there.
“We’re definitely a very competitive team and we can compete with any team in the SEC and college football,” Jalon Kilgore said. “When you play us, you know you’re going to get a good fight. We gonna play balls to the wall every single snap.”
